Thursday, 1 August 2013

Ashes alive?

A week and a bit have zipped past and here we are at the end
of day one of the third test. Just when
I’m thinking “the Ashes are over, it’ll be easy now”, Australia have their best
day of the series so far finishing on 30-3 with 80+ from Rogers, a ton from
Clarke which was always going to happen at some point in the series and somehow
Smith made it to 70. Watson was out
cheaply again, it begs the question; why do Australia persist in opening
with a man who in 43 test matches has only scored 2 hundreds and averages less
than 35? Those stats do not add up to a
test batsman in any position. As an
England fan I hope they keep him in. DRS
was a talking point yet again, Kawajha will feel aggrieved but at the end of
the day England had more to complain about.
The umpiring so far this series has been very bad.

So what will happen on day two? Australia should make 500 from here then they
can put pressure on England. Two years
ago we could count on England going beyond the oppositions total on a decent
pitch but nowadays we’re not so sure. It
will be interesting to see how England cope under pressure but you can’t bet
against Australia collapsing in the morning.

Some books. I’ve read
a lot of novels by John Grisham over the years, some like ‘A painted house’ or ‘Time
for a kill’ have been very good reads but others like ‘King of Torts’ and ‘Rainmaker’
have not really hit the buttons. His
latest novel titled “The Racketeer”
tells the story of a lawyer (of course), wrongly imprisoned who manages to get
himself out of jail and get revenge on the FBI.
It’s an interesting read but I never really cared about the characters. It’s not close to Grisham at his best but it’s
far from his worst too.

He makes me laugh sometimes but I don’t really like Russell
Brand and his “Booky wooky” has been
hanging around the house for years. I was desperate and needed a read, there
was absolutely no other choice. This autobiography
does all the usual stuff but particularly focusses on Brand’s outrageous
behaviour and various addictions, then his supposed recovery. There are some funny bits in the book which
make it amusing to read but at no point do I believe Brand is at all sorry for
behaving like a total wanker for most of his life. By the end he hadn’t managed to change my
opinion of him.